Georgia Patriot Files

Early voting has begun in the 26th State House District special election.   That would be for the seat formerly held by Geoff Duncan, who recently resigned. There are two Republican candidates on the ballot to succeed Mr. Duncan in the 2018 Georgia General Assembly.   They are Navy veteran, businessman and long-time county resident, Marc Morris, who is faced by former Democrat, former lobbyist turned researcher and blogger, Tina Trent, a recent transplant from Dawson County.   For what it’s worth, here’s how I evaluate the candidates in this race. Marc Morris and Tina Trent First of all, any candidate who represents the people in state government should be a good listener.   A representative who does not carefully consider the viewpoints of his or her constituents cannot adequately represent them in government, which of course is the job description. Regarding whether Mr. Morris would listen and carefully consider the opinions of those he repre...

Last week, US 7 th District US Representative Rob Woodall issued a press release excitedly announcing a new Republican budget proposal for 2018.   Said Woodall, “Any budget, whether at the federal level or within our households, is a roadmap – a vision – for accomplishing our priorities.”   Mr. Woodall was so excited because, according to him, the “Building a Better America” budget sets “forth discretionary spending levels that bring the budget to balance by 2027.”   In so doing, “the reconciliation instructions call on all House authorizing committees to find a minimum of $203 billion in mandatory savings over the next 10 years.” Mr. Woodall wants you to believe that his “roadmap” will lead to fiscal responsibility in Washington, DC.   Even if we could lend Woodall enough credibility to register a modicum of hope that his “vision” could possibly lead to a balanced annual budget in ten years, the power of compound interest, together with unavoidab...

Last week President Trump Tweeted, “...The fact is that Puerto Rico has been destroyed by two hurricanes. Big decisions will have to be made as to the cost of its rebuilding!” The “big decisions” to which Trump referred was the subject of my commentary two weeks ago, in an article entitled, “The Dollars and Sense of Disaster Relief.” In that piece, we looked at the actual dollars in circulation that are available to repair the damage from the two major hurricanes, Harvey and Irma.     We noted that even the US Government does not have those kinds of dollars ready and available for repairs, normally carrying only $50 to $60 billion in the cash accounts of the US Treasury at any particular time.   And those dollars are spoken for. And so we concluded that the only way enough dollars might ever come available to pay the hundreds of billions of dollars of damages would be for new dollars to be created for that purpose and spent into circulati...